Andrew Ryan
Andrew Ryan is the owner of Ryan Industries and the founder of Rapture. He is an eminently quotable figure, and represents the culmination of the highest ideals of Libertarianism. rolled into one man. His attempt at creating a Libertarian paradise, a city named Rapture, ended with his death at the hands of his own son. His legacy lives on, however, through the Plasmids that you or I use even today. Quotes *Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. *A man chooses, a slave obeys. *Even in a book of lies sometimes you find truth. There is indeed a season for all things and now that I see you flesh-to-flesh and blood-to-blood I know I cannot raise my hand against you. But know this, you are my greatest disappointment. Does your master hear me? Atlas! You can kill me, but you will never have my city. My strength is not in steel and fire, that is what the parasites will never understand. A season for all things! A time to live and a time to die, a time to build... and a time to destroy! *What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds. A parasite asks 'Where is my share?' A man creates. A parasite says, 'What will the neighbors think?' A man invents. A parasite says, 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God... ' *On the surface, I once bought a forest. The parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and demanded that I establish a public park there. Why? So the rabble could stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise *earned*. When Congress moved to nationalize my forest, I burnt it to the ground. God did not plant the seeds of this Arcadia - I did. *What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism. Whenever anyone wants others to do their work, they call upon their altruism. Never mind your own needs, they say, think of the needs of... of whoever. The state. The poor. Of the army, of the king, of God! The list goes on and on. How many catastrophes were launched with the words "think of yourself"? It's the "king and country" crowd who light the torch of destruction. It is this great inversion, this ancient lie, which has chained humanity to an endless cycle of guilt and failure. My journey to Rapture was my second exodus. In 1919, I fled a country that had traded in despotism for insanity. The Marxist revolution simply traded one lie for another. Instead of one man, the tsar, owning the work of all the people, *all* the people owned the work of all of the people. So, I came to America: where a man could own his own work, where a man could benefit from the brilliance of his own mind, the strength of his own muscles, the *might* of his own will. I had thought I had left the parasites of Moscow behind me. I had thought I had left the Marxist altruists to their collective farms and their five-year plans. But as the German fools threw themselves on Hitler's sword "for the good of the Reich", the Americans drank deeper and deeper of the Bolshevik poison, spoon-fed to them by Roosevelt and his New Dealists. And so, I asked myself: in what country was there a place for men like me - men who refused to say "yes" to the parasites and the doubters, men who believed that work was sacred and property rights inviolate. And then one day, the happy answer came to me, my friends: there was *no* country for people like me! And *that* was the moment I decided... to build one. Early Life in Russia Andrew Ryan was born Andrei Rianofski in a village near Minsk in Russia(modern Belarus), as the son of Pyotr Rianofski, during the time when the Tsar still held autocratic rule over the country. In 1917 he witnessed the Russian Revolution which catapulted the Bolshevik Party into power. Ryan's experiences under Soviet rule led him to his personal philosophy: the modern world was created by great men who strove to make their own way. Anytime "parasites" gained control of such a world, they destroyed it (as the Soviets did "trading one lie for another," the autocratic rule of the Tsar for the repressions of Bolshevism). When Pyotr spoke out agaisnt the bolsheviks, he was forced to flee the country with Andrei, and used up the last of his money escaping the nation with Andrei, although Pyotr's cousin Dmetri and his wife Vasili were killed by the Red Guards because they did not have the necessary money to bribe themselves out of the country. In 1919 he anglicized his name to Andrew Ryan and fled Russia to go to America, believing it to be a place where a great man could prosper. Life in America For a time, he was devoted to his adopted country, grateful for the wealth and fame it awarded his intellect and determination. However, the state social programs adopted in the 30s increasingly tested that devotion. His experiences in the "worker's paradise" made Ryan despise the ideals of Socialism, believing that those who benefited from others were parasites (e.g. he considered Roosevelt and his "New Dealers" to be the ones "spoon-feeding" Americans on the "Bolshevik Poison"). In his mind, one could only own what one earned. For instance, he once owned a large forest as a personal retreat, one that many groups envied (one group told him that it "belonged to God," demanding that he establish a public park there). When the government attempted to nationalize it as parkland, Ryan's response was to burn it to the ground so no one could have it. The final straw for Ryan was the destruction of Hiroshima with the atomic bomb. In his eyes, the bomb was the ultimate corruption of his ideals — science and determination harnessed for destruction, creating a weapon that gave the parasites the ability to destroy anything that they could not seize. Creation of Rapture Ryan's response was to use his entire fortune to build Rapture; a community where "the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small," in the only place he felt the parasites could not touch — the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. He created a shield company on the surface named Warden Yarn (an anagram of his name), and through it he conducted business with suppliers, such as Orrin Lutwidge's Scarlet Sovereign Import and Export, to receive materials necessary to build his city. When Rapture was completed, Ryan filled it with several thousand of the world's best and brightest, and for a time, it was everything he dreamed it would be, a paradise of freedom and prosperity. From 1946 to 1958, Rapture experienced tremendous economic progress, and solid political stability. As Ryan predicted, citizens in Rapture created a culture of entrepreneurship that was unrivaled, with numerous businesses established and unprecedented scientific advancement, culminating in the discovery of ADAM by Brigid Tenenbaum. The full implications of the Plasmid market were not immediately appreciated by Ryan, who dismissed the concerns of men like Rosenberg and Bill McDonagh. Ryan's failure to understand the ramifications of the burgeoning ADAM-based culture resulted in the rise of a little-known Fishery owner named Frank Fontaine. With Rapture at its apogee, Ryan ensured that his greatest supporters maintained control in various sectors of the city. This included Sander Cohen in Fort Frolic and J.S. Steinman in the Medical Pavilion. Ryan also hired a man named Carlson Fiddle to build Ryan Amusements: a theme park that doubled as a propaganda tool for the children of Rapture. Ryan himself provided narration to many of the rides and animatronic set pieces which attempted to warn children of the evils of the surface. This theme park embraced the city's new ADAM-culture, exalting Plasmid technologies like Incinerate! in the Hall of the Future section of the park. Rapture's Decline However, by filling a city with ambitious experts, trained geniuses, and breakthrough artists, Ryan set up a top-heavy class system with most Rapture citizens feeling that essential jobs such as food processing, cleaning, simple maintenance, etc. were beneath them, and thus were often ignored (as Frank Fontaine put it: "Someone had to scrub the toilets."). This led to widespread dissatisfaction when these jobs were neglected and an eventual economic collapse throughout Rapture. The social conditions resulting from the economic collapse allowed Frank Fontaine to establish the influential but undermining Fontaine's Home for the Poor and also allowed Atlas to rise to political power and openly challenge Andrew Ryan's leadership. Furthermore, in order to keep Rapture safely hidden from the parasites, Ryan strictly forbade contact with the surface, inadvertently creating a market for smuggled goods, which in turn led to the rise of Frank Fontaine's criminal enterprises. At Rapture's outset, Ryan intended this law to be Rapture's only one, but in the end, it proved to lay the groundwork for Rapture's decline and then divisive civil war. Ryan received challenges from other sectors as well. A seemingly benign psychologist named Sofia Lamb, whom Ryan had invited to Rapture to help the citizens deal with psychological issues stemming from the isolated environment, began to speak out openly against the Ryanist philosophy. Lamb espoused a collectivist, altruist philosophy that could not be more different from Ryan's. Ryan engaged Lamb in debates about various topics in an attempt to win back public support, but the crowds were usually in Lamb's favor. Lamb's followers represented a legitimate challenge of their own, and Ryan eventually removed Lamb altogether by having her incarcerated at Persephone Penal Colony. Sensing that "the Great Chain was pulling away" from him, as he was to relate in one of his Audio Diaries, Ryan finally realized the threat that Fontaine posed and began to take steps to curb his influence. Trying to get to the heart of Fontaine's smuggling operation, he had some of his security forces, such as Sullivan, try to investigate Fontaine and his men. Although these efforts were largely successful in breaking the back of the smuggling operation as a whole, Fontaine himself remained elusive, always managing to be "where the evidence isn't." The frustration of this situation affected Ryan deeply, causing him to begin to turn away from his own beliefs. Despite considerable uproar, Ryan implemented a highly unpopular law, sentencing convicted smugglers to death. Sometime in 1956, an Eve's Garden exotic dancer by the name of Jasmine Jolene became impregnated by Ryan. Once again showing his gift for foresight, Frank Fontaine made arrangements to purchase the embryo from Jolene, who claimed to "need the money." By that time, Ryan had much of Rapture's security and infrastructure coded to his own genetic frequency to combat the growing threat of the destabilized society. Fontaine realized that Jack, as the child was named, could be a powerful ally. Jack would share genetic code with Ryan, giving Jack access to secure areas that only Ryan and his relatives had access to. When Ryan learned what Jasmine Jolene did, he killed her in a fit of rage. With the smuggling operation in its death throes, Ryan sought a decisive conclusion to the Fontaine question. Ryan authorized putting an end to Fontaine and the remainder of his operation. An unrepentant Fontaine chose to, as Bill McDonagh put it, go down like "John Bloody Wayne" in one last stand. As the famous Rapture Standard headline proclaimed: "Ryan takes down smuggling operation ... Fontaine and thugs killed in fiery shootout!" on September 12th, 1958. Unbeknownst to Ryan, his arch rival concocted a scheme to fake his death. As Fontaine was later to relate in one of his Audio Diaries: "Ryan wanted Frank Fontaine dead, I just gave him what he wanted. As Atlas, I got a new face, a clean record, and a fresh start." Although Frank Fontaine was dead, out of his ashes emerged Atlas, an adversary that would prove much more dangerous than Fontaine ever was. Though Fontaine was correctly looked on as a thug by much of the Rapture public, Atlas was beloved, and for many he represented a legitimate alternative to the increasingly tyrannical Ryan. In the aftermath of Fontaine's perceived death, Ryan took a step that proved to be yet another betrayal of his philosophy, the nationalization of Fontaine Futuristics. Although building Rapture to escape the sort of "big government" that would take over private industry, he now engaged in precisely the same behavior. This move shook Rapture to its core, and proved to be a turning point in its decline. Even his long time friend, Bill McDonagh resigned from the Central Council in protest of this move. Civil War and Collapse Rapture's high water mark can be traced to nearly an exact moment: New Year's Eve, 1958. In a televised broadcast that night, Ryan acknowledged "trials" in the previous year but offered a toast to the city that 1959 may be Rapture's finest year. Alas, it was not to be. Just moments after his broadcast, the citizens of Rapture were alerted to an "incident" in the Kashmir Restaurant. This incident marked the most significant turning point in Rapture's decline as a civilized society. On this night, a masquerade ball was organized for Rapture's elite in the plush Kashmir Restaurant. During the festivities, a group of Atlas' revolutionaries launched an attack on the restaurant. Ryan and Atlas engaged in a destructive civil war that brought ruin to the city and claimed the lives of an untold number of its citizens. It was hoped that a peaceful resolution to the conflict could be achieved and that Ryan would be forced to address many of the Atlas supporters' grievances. However, Ryan refused to compromise with the "parasites" and was intent on fighting to the end even if it brought down the entire city. Plasmid technologies played a central role in the conflict, with the "genetic arms race" as McDonagh coined it, leading to the development of many combat Plasmids and Gene Tonics. Ryan's heavy-handed approach alienated many of his former supporters, even turning his closest friends, McDonagh and McClintock, against him. Ryan faced at least three assassination attempts by people who could get close to him. The corpses of many of these former supporters were mounted on the wall leading to his office as "trophies". As the civil war deepened, Yi Suchong proposed an unconventional means of breaking the stalemate that currently divided the city. He proposed altering the structure of the commercial Plasmid line to make citizens susceptible to mental suggestion by pheromones. This represented the ultimate betrayal of Ryan's objectivist philosophy: to deny citizens even the ability of free will itself. Yet Ryan agreed to this with the justification that Atlas and his supporters would make them slaves and free will would vanish in any case. Thus, the situation can be seen as ironic: in fighting his enemy, he became the enemy; he ultimately became one of the "Parasites" that he built Rapture to escape from. These pheromones proved decisive in turning the tide of the civil war in Ryan's favor. With the situation now desperate and, with only a few unspliced followers who weren't susceptible to Ryan's pheromones, such as Johnny, Atlas was forced to use his "ace in the hole". The Death of Andrew Ryan Atlas sent his "ace in the hole", Jack, on his journey to kill Ryan using the "would you kindly" trigger phrase, though Ryan was not aware of this at first. When Jack first arrived in Rapture, Ryan assumed he was someone from the Russian K.G.B. or the American C.I.A., come to make an already disintegrating situation worse. Slowly, Ryan began to piece together the puzzle, realizing that Atlas was directing Jack's movements. As Jack made his way to Rapture Central Control, Ryan began to hint at this knowledge in his final radio messages before his face-to-face meeting with Jack. The "Would You Kindly" board outside his office showed how Ryan put together the clues connecting himself with Jasmine Jolene, and Jack as their illegitimate son. Infuriated with this knowledge, Ryan decided to activate Rapture's self-destruct mechanism in a final attempt to put a stop to Fontaine's plan. Minutes later, Jack confronted Ryan, who was casually playing golf in his office. He educated Jack about his true self, telling him of his birth, his conditioning, his experiences in Rapture and the phrase "would you kindly", which controlled his every action. He told his son that the fundamental difference between a man and a slave is that "a man chooses, while a slave obeys". Ryan then handed Jack the golf club and ordered Jack to kill him. Jack obeyed, and proceeded to beat his father to death. Category:Economics